Requested by Silver's Fangs! Please note: I cannot read your mind. I do not know exactly what happened. If it is not how you pictured and you don't like it, I'm sorry.

"Mouse-brain! You let another bird get away!" I hissed at my apprentice, Perchpaw.

"I'm s - sorry, Sunheart. I - I didn't mean to." Perchpaw shuffled his paws apologetically and looked at me rather awkwardly. Awkward. It was the perfect word to describe him. Perchpaw was a larger-than-average black tom with dull amber eyes. His paws were too big for his already oversized body. He had a bulky head and stuttered a lot.

Of course, Pinestar had made me the mentor of this useless cat.

"Just... stop being so loud," I snapped. "The birds can hear you coming a mile away. And keep your tail tucked in so you don't make any extra noise. And your paws-" I broke off with a hiss of frustration.

"S - sorry. B - but you know I - I'm a fast r - runner. Maybe I c - can hunt for s - something fast, l - like a rabbit o - or squirrel? I c - could get o - one of those."

"We're ThunderClan cats," I snapped. "We don't eat rabbits. But by all means, go ahead, if it means catching something today for the queens and elders."

A tiny voice in my head chided me: don't you think you're being a bit hard on him? He's doing his best. I ignored it. Even if it was his best, it wasn't good enough.

"What a - about a s - s - squirrel?"

"You find one yourself." I slumped down against a tree and started grooming myself, watching Perchpaw out of the corner of my eye. He had obviously spied some prey, but his hunting crouch was all wrong, with his rump sticking sky-high in the air, and as he moved toward the prey - which I could now see was a squirrel - his paws crushed the leaves and sticks underneath him.

The squirrel, hearing the noise, took off. Perchpaw screeched, "Fox-dung, I'm not letting another piece of prey get away this time," and followed. I had to admit: he was fast, fast enough to be a WindClan cat. But he wasn't quiet or careful like all my past apprentices.

I quickly scaled a tree and watched the events unfold. The squirrel was young and quick, darting from tree to tree, always keeping just out of reach of Perchpaw, who was no more than a black blur as he frantically followed the squirrel.

The squirrel climbed up a tree. Perchpaw hissed and jumped onto the trunk, moving up the tree quickly. My jaw dropped. Perchpaw had never shown this kind of grace and agility while climbing a tree before.

Then the branch underneath one of my apprentice's poorly placed paws snapped. I gasped. This foolish mouse-brain plummeted to the forest floor, where he immediately sprang back up. But the breaking branch had scared the squirrel; it dashed away. Perchpaw screamed with frustration and sprinted after it.

Perchpaw was getting extremely close to the squirrel, and both were getting dangerously close to the Thunderpath; I jumped down from the tree I was on and raced after them.

I arrived just in time to see the squirrel launching onto the Thunderpath. Perchpaw wasn't even looking to see if there were any monsters around and catapulted himself after it.

Mouse-brain! I screamed in my head. I could see a huge, bright red monster hurtling straight toward him. A shriek built in my throat.

Perchpaw had caught the squirrel. He seemed pleased with himself. At least he would die happy.

No. No. He cannot die. I will not let him die.

I jumped onto the Thunderpath, screaming, "Perchpaw! Monster!"

The black tom looked around for quite a while before seeing it. The horror showed on his face. I could see his muscles getting all tense, the fear in his eyes, his rapid breathing. But he didn't move. He was literally paralyzed with fear.

"No!" I shoved myself at him; my shoulder crashed into his side and I thrust my paws outward, pushing him onto the other side. Pushing him to safety.

I could see the monster coming at me. There was no time at all. And all I could see was the shiny red monster and the glowing lights and the black paws and then they were all hitting me, hitting me and pushing me back.

It was pain like I had never known. Excruciating pain, a burning fire all over, my chest heaving, my paws and legs twisted and mangled, an enormous pain everywhere. I wheezed. Pain. Pain everywhere.

"Sunheart!" I could vaguely feel somebody rolling me onto my back.

"StarClan. Oh StarClan."

I tried to open my eyes. It was hard. I never noticed how hard it was to open my eyes. But I did. I got it.

Perchpaw was staring at me. "Thank StarClan, y - you're alive."

"Uhhh." I tried to talk but I couldn't and I coughed, coughed out blood and it coated half of Perchpaw's face and I could feel it dribbling down my chin. I could feel everything, especially the blood and pain. The blood was dripping out of a huge gash in my stomach. It poured out of my twisted paws. Blood was everywhere.

"Shh. D - don't talk. Save your breath."

I lifted my paw up, which took a lot of effort, just to see it better. The blood was pouring out, dripping onto my face. The paw was at a weird angle. I could see bits of bone showing.

"Sunheart. Y - you're okay."

"Can't..." I rasped. The world was growing dimmer by the moment. "Perchpaw... I'm... proud of you."

"Shh."

"I'm... sorry. I was... awful. Bad. Bad mentor." I coughed and more blood spurted out.

"Good... bye."

"No!"

It was the last thing I heard as the world turned black.